‘Duck Dynasty’ Family Responds to Phil Robertson Furor

During a New Year’s Eve appearance on Fox News, “Duck Dynasty” co-star Willie Robertson responded to the controversy surrounding Phil Robertson in the wake of the anti-gay statements the family patriarch made to GQ magazine.

“We’re just glad to be back to work, and A&E and us are fine,” Willie Robertson said on Fox News’s “All-American New Year.”

The appearance came after the elder Robertson was suspended “indefinitely” and then reinstated by A&E after making statements equating homosexuality to bestiality and suggesting African Americans in the South were happier before the civil rights movement.

“We’re looking forward to getting back to making some funny shows. It’s a New Year so we’re ready to break in a New Year and start it all over again,” Willie Robertson said.

On the decision to stay with A&E, he said, “We’re ready to get started. We got a new season coming up in a couple of weeks and really excited about that. We got a couple of episodes filmed, and we’ll be filming in before we know it. We’re ready to move on, you know. I think we all learned a lot and we’re just ready to move on, and the family’s happy, and we’re ready to go. I’ve got to make sure my guys are back there building duck calls.”

Wife Korie Robertson weighed in by stating, “I’m just glad the family is all together. The best thing about this show is we get to do it together as a family, and the fact that we get to continue to do that, we’re all happy, happy, happy.”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.